Dear friends,

As many of you know, we’ve been on an extended hiatus since early December. Our contributing editor Sarena and I spent the last few months resting, recuperating, and reflecting on the future of the site. And in those few months, we made the decision that after nearly seven years, it’s time to say goodbye to Drizzle.

I started Drizzle in 2016, just a few months after I graduated from college. Back then, Drizzle was just a clunky little blog with a handful of reviews I assumed no one would ever read. But to my surprise, Drizzle grew, and grew, and grew. We started with only forty-three views in our first month. Since then, we’ve accumulated 87,000 views in the lifetime of the site from more than 60,000 unique visitors.

And our community of reviewers expanded, too. In 2017, I brought on a small team of contributing writers to help me create content: the wonderful Leonora Simonovis and Michelle Mitchell-Foust. And in 2020, we grew again — this time adding Sarena Brown, a dedicated and thoughtful contributing editor who was the catalyst behind our summer book club, to the team.

Since our humble beginnings, sixty-five reviewers have given us the honor of publishing their work, many of whom have become close friends. We’ve shared hundreds of pieces, from book reviews to interviews, reading lists, essays, comics, diaries, and general musings. Drizzle became more than I ever imagined it would. It became a community.

In a recent email, one of our long-time reviewers summed up our work more eloquently than I ever could: “I hope you know that you created a meaningful, important space in the world of books. The works of underrepresented authors found a place that celebrated their works by providing deeply considered reviews and commentaries. Newly emerging writers, like me, also found a warm and wonderful home…”

We are so grateful to have been a home for writers and readers for the better part of a decade. But now, Sarena and I are ready to take the energy we have so lovingly put into this site and put it elsewhere. Where? To be honest, we aren’t sure yet. But we are both excited to give ourselves space and time to find out what’s next.

While this is goodbye from Drizzle, it is certainly not goodbye to the wonderful connections we’ve made along the way. If you’d like to say hello, you can still send us a note at drizzlereview@gmail.com.

Until then, happy reading!

Rebecca Valley, editor-in-chief

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa

GENRE: fantasy | harpervia 2021 | REVIEWED BY Esther ro

Everyone needs a cat friend like Tiger the Tabby in their lives. 

As Rintaro Natsuki, the main character of this heartwarming modern fable, navigates both the practicalities and emotional realities surrounding his grandfather’s death, he spends most of his time in his grandfather’s bookstore. The book opens with Rintaro whiling away his time at Natsuki Books and considering the uncertain future that awaits for both himself and the store. Although there are some bracing visits from his classmate Ryota Akiba and the class representative Sayo Yuzuki, Rintaro resigns himself to a certain ennui about his future – that is until Tiger the Tabby appears. Unlike Rintaro, Tiger the Tabby knows exactly what Rintaro should do: save books. 

Guided into a dream-like world, Rintaro sets out to stop crimes against books at the behest of Tiger the Tabby. Each excursion brings Rintaro face to face with those who have perverted the simple act of reading and enjoying books for profit, reputation, or out of misguided intentions. Each adventure brings Rintaro closer to acknowledging and appreciating the deep bond he shared with books, and therefore with his deceased grandfather. 

A heartwarming story, Sosuke Natsukawa’s quirky tale features a clear and distinctive message: the love of books can always be restored to those who have lost their way.  

Why We Love It: This is a novel for book lovers, cat lovers, and anyone who needs a light and inspirational tale to brighten their day.

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crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

GENRE: Memoir | KNOPF 2021 | REVIEWED BY Esther ro

Crying in H Mart marks the rites of passage in a mother-daughter relationship. This sometimes fraught, mostly endearing bond is characterized early on in a cutting description: “Her rules and expectations were exhausting, and yet if I retreated from her I was isolated and wholly responsible for entertaining myself. And so I spent my childhood divided between two impulses, engaging in the intrinsic tomboyish whims that led to her reprimands and clinging to my mother, desperate to please her.” 

What makes this innate desire to please difficult is that Michelle’s mother Chongmi, has many rules: rules about appearances, rules about conduct, and of course, rules about food. But perhaps the most difficult rule comes early in the book when Chongmi says to her often-wayward daughter: “Save ten percent of yourself.” It is a quietly devastating realization later on when Michelle understands that her mother may never have revealed her whole self, even to her daughter. After the revelation of her mother’s terminal illness, Michelle tries to recover that ten percent and reconnect with Chongmi, with varying degrees of success. 

Crying in H Mart asks: what are the ways we connect with others, and what are the ways we fail to connect? One thing that Zauner never fails to elucidate is that as fraught as the relationship between the two women can be, there is never a doubt that a strong bond exists between mother and daughter. As she says:, “Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn’t care if it hurt like hell in the meantime.” And in writing so clearly and precisely about this love, Michelle accomplishes no small feat in showing how different, how particular, and how singular a mother’s love can look and feel. 

Why We Love It: This memoir about connection and motherhood is ultimately relatable to anyone who has struggled with how unknowable we are even to those we love the most.

Quarantine Highway by millicent borges accardi (flowersong press 2022)

Reviewed by Alex Carrigan

After the start of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, we’re finally beginning to see literature that addresses the global pandemic that has radically altered the world we live in. At this stage, the works we’re reading are from those who used the lockdown to produce new work and use poetry as an alternate diary. These pieces offer emotional insight into moments during this time, but because of the length of the pandemic, many of these moments blur to focus more on the emotions and details that resonated from the isolation.

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